As the economic importance of business travel and tourism has
continued to rise in cities around the United States, so has the
visibility of the industry's primary marketing agent in most
communities--the local convention and visitors bureau. For better or
worse, gone forever are the days when CVBs can contently go about the
business of selling their destinations to the world while remaining
relatively isolated from the shifting political and economic winds
blowing through their cities.

Once largely an island unto themselves in their communities' big
pictures, CVBs and the economic impact they represent are receiving
unprecedented attention by local leaders. CVB officials are discovering
that such attention has brought with it a change in responsibilities
during recent years, however, as chief executive officers who were
traditionally hired to sell are becoming increasingly engrossed in
political and community relations activities.

"If this was a perfect world, bureaus should and would continue
to do what they were designed to do, and that is sell their destinations
to the tourism and meetings market," says Richard Newman, president
and chief executive officer of the International Association of
Convention & Visitor Bureaus (IACVB), Champaign, Illinois. "But
in the political realities of society in the 1990s, bureaus have become
more proactive in community affairs, often taking a leading role in
helping alleviate some of the pressing social issues. Sometimes this
comes by default, but communities are looking to bureaus as a community
leader," says Newman, whose own association has become more
politically active by co-sponsoring special economic development
conferences on tourism for the last three years with the National
Association of State Economic Development Agencies, Washington, D.C.

"The change is dramatic from what it used to be," says
David Heinl, president and chief executive officer of the Greater
Raleigh Convention & Visitors Bureau, North Carolina. "You must
be someone who is politically astute, because this is a political
position now," says Heinl, who was the 1982-1983 IACVB president
and has been active with CVBs since 1970.

Most CVBs have had little choice but to assume a higher profile. In
an age of enhanced multicultural sensitivity and demand for politically
correct behavior, CVBs have become painfully aware that today's
association convention decision maker considers much more than a
community's exhibit space and hotel room block.

CVBs are finding, for example, that local and state lawmakers'
mishandling of sensitive social issues can evoke the ire of many groups
who frequently take their anger out on affected destinations by
canceling conventions.

"I don't mind bureaus being held accountable for things
they can control, like convention sales, but it's hard to hold a
bureau accountable for a state legislature passing something like an
abortion law that some people don't like," says Newman of the
growing trend of CVBs bearing the brunt of a community's perceived
social ills. "Groups shouldn't take it out on the bureau by
not coming to its city. They should be voicing their objections to the
state legislature," says Newman.

To protect themselves and the numerous businesses they represent,
CVBs have developed a variety of strategies to cope with controversy in
their communities. Since they usually receive some public funding,
however, CVBs must act in a cautious and often complicated fashion.

By assuming a more active community role--often out of
necessity--many CVBs have discovered that they can use their experience,
visibility, and resources to the benefit of themselves and their
communities in a variety of significant ways.

The new roles CVBs play today are, indeed, affecting society in a
number of tangible ways. Their experiences in successfully dealing with
adversity hold valuable lessons for association executives seeking to
enhance public awareness or establish more fruitful community and
government relations.

PHOENIX: CAMPAIGNING FOR KING

Perhaps no single issue has more poignantly illustrated how events
have dictated changing roles for CVBs in recent years than the Martin
Luther King holiday situation in Arizona. A lingering and embarrassing
mess that began in 1986 when the Arizona House of Representatives failed
by one vote to pass a law creating a King state holiday, the issue
finally was resolved when voters in the November 1992 election passed
legislation to create a King-Civil Rights Day to be observed on the
third Monday in January.

In the meantime, CVBs throughout Arizona were forced to deal with a
firestorm of protest from groups angered that the state was not
officially honoring the revered civil rights leader. Many of the groups
took action that was aimed directly at the state's all-important
tourism and convention industry.

The Phoenix and Valley of the Sun Convention & Visitors Bureau
estimates that 152 groups canceled events in the Phoenix area because of
the controversy, resulting in $160 million in lost convention business
that negatively affected some 4,000 jobs. Lost sales and occupancy taxes
alone exceeded $12 million, and the bureau stresses that these figures
represent only group business already booked and not individual
tourists, shorter-term corporate meetings, or the 1993 Super Bowl (which
the National Football League took away from Phoenix to protest the
holiday situation) and its estimated $150 million economic impact.

To further add to the distressful situation, a 1990 attempt to create
the holiday was defeated by less than 1 percent of the vote, largely
because of confusion created by having two separate propositions to
establish a King holiday on the ballot. In fact, the bureau estimated
that 65 percent of Arizona voters actually believed they voted in favor
of the holiday in 1990, but their split votes on the two propositions
caused both of them to fail.

With so much at stake, the Phoenix bureau felt it had to move swiftly
after the 1990 defeat. Bureau President David Radcliffe explains that
the Phoenix hospitality industry formed a committee the day after the
1990 election defeat to determine how to best approach another ballot
measure for the holiday in 1992.

"We viewed the successful passage of the holiday as a central
issue in the long-term success of our industry, so we became involved in
a political campaign," says Radcliffe, who asserts that the state
situation was particularly frustrating to Phoenix, since it was one of
the first cities in the nation to honor King with a paid holiday back in
1984.

The committee determined that the first areas addressed should be
voter research and research on the effects of the controversy on the
hospitality industry. From the committee, a larger coalition was
formed--Hospitality Employees For Arizona's Future. HEAF actually
became a subgroup of a communitywide umbrella organization called
Victory Together, created to secure passage of the holiday. Radcliffe,
representing the hospitality industry, sat on Victory Together's
steering committee.

Radcliffe says it was decided that HEAF would concentrate on
mobilizing its own industry, while other segments of Victory Together
would target areas of generally soft support, such as the seniors
communities.

"It became obvious to us at that time that if we could educate
our hospitality employees and get them registered to vote, we could have
a positive impact on the outcome," says Radcliffe of the estimated
250,000 people who are employed in some fashion by the hospitality
industry in the Phoenix area.

HEAF developed a three-prong approach to its industry: Educate
employees, register them to vote, and make sure they get to the polls on
election day. HEAF decided to run a grass-roots, one-on-one campaign
rather than a public debate with heavy advertising and media exposure.
Radcliffe explains that past experiences along with HEAF's voter
research indicated that public debates of the issue actually gave their
opponents added exposure and created more confusion, often turning soft
support against them in the process.

HEAF printed some 100,000 brochures and posters on the issue. The
group also produced and distributed 1,000 tapes for viewing at various
group functions and places of employment. It worked with the area hotels
to display the posters, and it reached out to other businesses
negatively impacted by the situation such as taxi companies.

The organization also secured 50,000 voter registration forms and
registered more than 20,000 new voters in the hospitality industry.
Radcliffe feels that number is especially significant, given the 1990
holiday passage was defeated by fewer than 10,000 votes.

HEAF actually waited until the month of October to launch a massive
industry education program that included the collateral materials,
speeches, and personal conversations that covered what it meant to each
industry employee and why this was an important issue concerning the
principles of civil rights.

On election day, HEAF established shuttles to the polls to ensure
that every employee who needed a ride could get one. Voters passed the
proposal November 3 by a margin of 61 percent to 39 percent.

"Reason prevailed," says Radcliffe. "It was a long and
painful process, but we felt gratified with the result."

"No, I never did |think I would get involved in a political
issue of this nature~," says Radcliffe when asked how the Phoenix
bureau's role has changed in the community. "My position, to a
degree, has always been wrought with politics, but they have been
internal within the industry and not this external. I think the
communities we represent are looking to us to play roles that are more
than what they have traditionally looked upon us to do."

However painful and time-consuming the effort, Radcliffe asserts that
the bureau and the entire community has benefitted from the collective
activities involved in passing the law.

"We were able to pull members of the business community together
that were far removed from the issue to build business coalitions,"
says Radcliffe. "These coalitions, I think, will stay in place to
continue to work on community relations issues. The whole civil rights
issue has forced our community to take an introspective look. Our first
goal was to win the election, but what has come from it has been a
community agenda that should have a positive, long-term impact."

PORTLAND: CONVEYING ECONOMIC IMPACT

Another CVB that had a lot at stake last November was the Portland
Oregon Visitors Association (POVA). Because of liberal procedures that
make it generally easy to place issues on state ballots, a conservative
fundamentalist group was able to propose a measure to amend the Oregon
constitution in a way that would have had a negative effect on gay
rights.

Ballot Measure Nine, sponsored by the Oregon Citizens Alliance, would
have forced the state to declare homosexuality abnormal and perverse
behavior and required public schools to counsel students to avoid such a
lifestyle. The fallout from this controversial proposal was immediate,
and again much of it was aimed at the hospitality industry.

"As this state started to get national attention, we started
getting contacted by groups who had booked conventions here or were
considering Portland, and they told us that if this measure passed, they
would not come here," says Jim Bocci, POVA public relations manager.

POVA eventually received some 1,800 letters from out of state urging
the bureau to do something about the ballot measure and warning it of
the consequences of its passage. According to Bocci, threatened
cancellations of conventions already booked in Portland reached $20.6
million.

Reluctant to become embroiled in the political hotbed created by the
issue, Bocci asserts that POVA still influenced the issue early on by
compiling and effectively communicating the economic impact figures. The
bureau also found that the media attention was helping it build a more
forceful image of the organization and the importance of the industry it
represents.

"Because we were the only ones attaching a dollar figure to the
issue, we were receiving a lot of attention initially," says Bocci,
who adds that the Oregon governor's office also used the POVA
figures to campaign against the measure. "We stacked the letters
and had the media come in and photograph them. When you have 1,800
letters, it is a very powerful visual. By having facts and figures that
were enticing to the media, we were able to build our public
image," says Bocci, who adds that the Oregon Citizens Alliance was
a formidable foe because it ran a well-organized campaign that played on
the emotions of citizens uncomfortable with the gay community.

Despite the bureau's reluctance as a publicly funded institution
to become more involved in such a political and socially sensitive
issue, Bocci asserts that there finally came a time when POVA knew it
had to take an active, public stand against the measure.

"We finally took a stand when our board decided that the issue
was affecting the mission of POVA," says Bocci. "Once the
board decided this, we felt we could become more vocal on the issue and
still remain somewhat apolitical." He adds that POVA conducted a
town meeting of sorts for its membership in which representatives of
both sides of the issue made presentations as part of the decision
process to take a stand.

POVA then developed a policy statement on the issue, called a press
conference, and continued to hammer away during frequent public
appearances at the issue of civil rights and what the meetings and
tourism industry--as Oregon's number three industry--means to the
state's citizens in terms of tax revenues and jobs. POVA officials
also became active members of the No On Nine committee formed by various
civic groups to defeat the measure.

Once the measure was defeated in a fairly close vote, POVA
communicated directly with the 1,800 letter writers. Sending a personal
letter and copy of a colorful book highlighting Portland's natural
beauty, POVA explained how easy it is for measures to be placed on
Oregon ballots and what the bureau did to help defeat the measure and
ensure that Oregon welcomed all visitors.

"It was a very good way to cut back on the strong rhetoric that
was thrown out in relation to the ballot measure," says Bocci.
"We received some very nice letters back. They were impressed that
we took the extra step."

Similar to Phoenix, POVA found that this crisis situation actually
turned out to pay positive dividends.

"The number one thing we learned was how to work with the
community to get things done," says Bocci. "A nice benefit
that came from this was building nontraditional relationships with other
community groups that helped us politically and in image building. We
were able to build clout with groups that would not normally look at the
association as a player."

MIAMI: BATTLING A BOYCOTT

In early summer of 1990, the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors
Bureau (GMCVB) became immersed in a night-marish situation that
continues to haunt Miami's convention industry today. Through a
complex series of events--including an appearance at a Miami Beach convention by African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela,
statements Mandela made in support of Fidel Castro and other
controversial world leaders, and a perceived snub of Mandela by Miami
city leaders--the bureau found itself the target of a convention boycott
organized by several influential groups. Among them: the local chapter
of the National Bar Association, composed mostly of African Americans.

Before they would agree to lift the boycott, the groups insisted that
a list of demands be met. Much to the Miami bureau's dismay, many
of the demands were very political in nature and as such were
technically beyond the influence of the Miami hospitality industry.
Bureau officials felt they had no control over demands such as reform of
certain U.S. immigration laws and changing the metropolitan government
system to ensure a higher minority representation.

According to Mayco Villafana, GMCVB director of communications, the
bureau diligently worked behind the scenes from June to December 1990 to
end the boycott by bringing together the various parties that could
resolve some of the demands. He asserts they met with little success.

"We were told that we were not the solution but part of the
problem," says Villafana of the Miami hospitality industry's
efforts. When announcing the boycott, organizers did indeed cite
"rampant discrimination" throughout the Miami hospitality
industry as one of the demands that must be addressed and remedied.

Failing to serve as a mediator among groups involved in the boycott
situation, Villafana says GMCVB officials decided it would concentrate
its efforts on dispelling the notion that the city's tourism
community was discriminatory. Through research of existing government
statistics and surveys of the largest Miami hotels, GMCVB determined
that the percentage of non-Hispanic black employees in the local visitor
industry was around 25 percent--higher than their percentage in the
general population.

"But we did look at the management ranks in the industry and
decided that, yes, that needed attention," says Villafana of the
percentage of non-Hispanic blacks in industry management positions.
Working with the Miami-based Florida International University, GMCVB
discovered that the university's highly regarded School of
Hospitality & Management enrollment was less than 5 percent African
American. Through industry fund-raising efforts that have netted
$150,000 to date, GMCVB has developed a comprehensive two-year
scholarship package at Florida International for African American
students who already have earned a two-year college degree.

The package includes a mentor program, a job at a local hotel while
in school, and employment in the Miami tourism community if all program
requirements are met upon graduation. GMCVB asks that students make a
moral commitment to work two years locally in return. To date, more than
30 students have enrolled in the program and its first graduate now
works at the Fontainbleau Hilton Resort & Spa in a management
position.

GMCVB also formed the Visitor Industry Human Resource Development
Council, a nonprofit corporation charged with developing long-range
programs aimed at increasing the economic participation of African
Americans in the Miami hospitality industry. To date, the council has
held training seminars for African American vendors on how to
participate in the industry, developed a joint venture with the Dade
County Public School system for waiter and waitress training, developed
"Adopt A School" programs with local hotels, and implemented a
hospitality careers awareness program in local high schools.

"We moved rather quickly to address the issues we felt we could
have some influence over," says Villafana of the numerous programs
that GMCVB initiated in less than one year. "They |the new
programs~ are a positive step forward, but 1,000 more steps need to be
taken. We can't answer to the political machinery; it's just
impossible," says Villafana of the ongoing boycott that has cost
Miami around $15 million in convention business thus far.

Despite the ongoing boycott, Villafana says that GMCVB's efforts
have helped ease the tension and prompted hope of a real solution to the
root problems. In a statement expressing their willingness to open more
meaningful dialogue with Miami's business leaders, the Boycott
Miami Committee stated, "Business leaders have finally moved from
making promises to taking concrete first steps ... toward inclusion of
blacks in the mainstream of Greater Miami's tourism-driven
economy." According to GMCVB, the majority of the initiatives and
programs cited by the committee were those created by the bureau and its
Visitor Industry Council.

"As more minorities gain political clout in American cities and
demand a fair share of the economic pie, CVBs must be prepared to deal
with new issues that never before affected their operations," says
Merrett Stierheim, GMCVB's president and chief executive officer.
"CVBs must face the fact that along with a good hotel product,
quality service, attractions and security, a city must have a
progressive record of dealing with issues that are as diverse as race
relations, economic opportunities and the environment."

As Miami continued to struggle with the broad issue of race relations
in a very culturally diverse city, great adversity struck once more last
fall. Hurricane Andrew's wide path of destruction and intense
publicity gave the nation the impression that it was anything but
business as usual in Miami despite the fact that a good deal of the
area's tourism infrastructure went relatively unscathed.

In the storm's wake, GMCVB quickly put its housing bureau
department into action helping the community and serving convention
groups that found themselves uninformed of their event status or
possibly displaced by the wave of relief workers and suddenly homeless
people. The housing bureau also became a hotel hotline by matching room
availability with homeless people who desperately needed places to stay.

Simultaneously, GMCVB undertook an active public education program as
to why the region needed to get back to normal and area hotels needed to
return to business as usual as soon as possible.

"We felt strongly that it was an economic issue for us,
especially since 270,000 of Miami's work force are directly or
indirectly involved in this industry," says Villafana, who asserts
that the bureau was able to minimize event cancellations through its
efforts. "We needed to get our infrastructure back together as soon
as possible, get our homeless employees put up in area hotels, and
educate the public on why our businesses needed to open up again. We
were not trying to ignore the pain but trying to prevent greater pain by
having people employed by our industry who had lost their homes also
lose their jobs."

Additionally, Villafana says GMCVB played an active role in matching
up local charities with concerned groups meeting in Miami that wanted to
make financial or other contributions to the relief effort.

"It's all part of being responsive to your community,"
says Villafana.

ATLANTIC CITY: RELATING TO A DIVERSE COMMUNITY

When your organization represents an industry that employs almost two
thirds of a city's work force, you have a substantial community
relations responsibility. Such is the case with New Jersey's
Greater Atlantic City Convention & Visitors Bureau.

Employing approximately 47,000 people in a community with roughly 50
percent of its population composed of various minority groups, Atlantic City's gaming and hotel industry has taken its shots in the past
from certain community groups that have felt left out of the economic
bonanza legalized gambling and major conventions have brought to the
seaside city.

According to Steve Richer, bureau president, the entire industry has
taken a leading role in bringing the entire community closer together.

"We found that the industry and the community have tremendous
common ground just by talking to them," says Richer. "If you
look at the top three concerns |of each party~, they are very
similar--safety, good schools (so industry has educated employees), and
more thing to do for both visitors and residents."

To foster more meaningful communication and understanding among all
segments of the community, Richer says the bureau and local chamber of
commerce have teamed up to create several highly successful programs.
They have put on a series of hospitality industry seminars and town
meetings designed to teach the community more about how the industry
works and encourage input from the community.

"The industry is their neighbor, and they need to understand
it," says Richer. "When you're a single parent living in
an apartment overshadowed by a casino, you're not going to go up to
the casino chief executive officer and tell him what you think. There
has to be forums where these people feel welcome and invited to come and
speak their minds," adds Richer, who also works closely with the
National Conference of Christians & Jews to establish fruitful
interaction between the industry and the community.

The CVB also helped establish Atlantic City Tomorrow, a
three-year-old leadership program involving mostly minorities that
teaches its participants how different sectors of local business and
government work. With the bureau in charge of the economic development
and tourism portion of the curriculum, Atlantic City Tomorrow already
boasts several success stories. Richer says that three current city
council members are program graduates.

To help ensure that all members of the Atlantic City community truly
feel a part of the tourism community, Richer says that the CVB recently
developed a whole series of advertisements featuring various ethnic
groups as tourists. The ads also were placed in mainstream publications,
not just minority-focused media.

"We think that's been helpful to get the community to see
that we're sincere," says Richer of the ads. "We've
tried to involve the whole community to show that they're not only
staff but customers, and their friends and family are welcome in
Atlantic City. There's a subtle difference between 'I work
here' and 'I'm welcome here,'" adds Richer, who
asserts that Atlantic City's hospitality industry management mix
reflects diversity.

Richer feels that the hospitality industry's proactive community
relations programs have noticeably benefitted the industry.

"There's been less beating up on the industry than there
used to be, but it's still a constant education process," says
Richer, who feels that solid relations with government and community
leaders recently have been instrumental in Atlantic City's receipt
of the infrastructure projects and marketing budgets required to keep
the local hospitality industry healthy.

As for CVBs and their higher community profiles, Richer feels the
match is permanent.

"CVBs, being advocates for one of the leading linchpins in local
economies, have to bring with them all the elements that make a
community work for visitors," says Richer. "A community has to
understand what you do. If you don't have good relations with the
mayor, you're dead. Effective CVBs can't exist in a
vacuum."

Activism Again

Two other recent examples underscore convention and visitors
bureaus' reasons for getting involved in social and political
issues.

In Victoria, British Columbia, the city's vote to continue to
discharge untreated sewage into the Strait of Jan de Fuca was impetus
enough for the Washington Society of Association Executives, Edmonds, to
pull its scheduled 1995 summer convention from the Empress Hotel there.
The impact: Some 150 members will not visit Victoria for three days in
July 1995.

In Denver, Colorado's highly publicized amendment banning
protection of the status of gay and bisexual people prompted at least
four associations to cancel plans to bring meetings to the city. The
Denver Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau has reported a loss
already of approximately $6.4 million as a result. But activism begets
activism. The Denver bureau is launching a no-nonsense advertising
campaign to proclaim that its "black eye" isn't deserved,
and a coalition is fighting to negate the controversial amendment.

Jeff Waddle is a free-lance writer and executive director of the
Greater Cincinnati Hotel-Motel Association.

COPYRIGHT 1993 American Society of Association Executives
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.